Improvement in stock for holding sheep



N. MERRITT.

Stobks fbr Holding Sheep, &c. I No. 45,332. I Patented Dec. 6. 1864.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

NEHEMIAH MERRITT, OF DE RUYTER, NEW YORK.

IMPROVEMENT IN STOCK FOR HOLDING SHEEP, &C.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 45,332. dated December 6,1864.

To all whom it may concern.

Be it known that I, NEHEMIAH MERRITT, of De Ruyter, in the county of Madison and State of New York, haveinvented a new, useful, and improved frame or stock for holding the legs of sheep while shearing and the legs of other animals while transporting, doctoring, or slaughtering; and I do hereby declare that the same is described and represented in the following specifications and drawings.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my improved frame or stock, I will proceed to describe its construction and the mode of using it, referring to the drawings, in which the same letters indicate like parts in each of the figures.

Figure l is an isometrical view of the stock. Fig. 2 is one of the pins.

The nature of myimproved sheep stock consists in a board or frame of wood with four holes through it for the legs of the sheep to be sheared, which board is provided with pins inserted at a right angle to the holes for the legs, to hold the legs 01 the sheep at the ends of the holes after they are inserted, and prevent the legs from being drawn out of the holes.

In the accompanying drawings, A is a piece of plank or board, about twenty-five inches in length and about eight inches in width, and one or one and a half inches in thickness, according to the strength of the wood,

through which piece of wood I make four holes, B B B B, so large that the feet of the sheep or animal to be held can be thrust through them and the shanks pressed into the narrow ends of the holes, and the pins 0 0 put through to hold the shanks of the legs in the narrow ends of the holes and prevent the leg from being drawn out until the pin 0 is removed. These pins 0 U should be made of strong, tough wood and fitted to the holes bored through the plank at a right angle to the holes for the legs.

In using this stock the feet of a sheep are thrust through the holes and secured as above mentioned, which so separates and connects the feet that neither one can move without moving the other three in the same direction, and effectually prevents the sheep from kicking while being sheared and from catching a foot in the bow of the shears and jerking them from the hand, throwing them against some other shearer, as happened in one case within my knowledge, where a sheep with her foot jerked the shears from her shearer and and threw them into the leg of a young man, making a wound which bled so freely that he came near dyin g before the bleeding was stopped.

I have described my improved stook as being made of wood, but it may be made of metal or some other material.

The great advantage of my stock is that it holds the limbs of the sheep from one another in their natural position, so that the shearer can easily operate upon the under part of the body and between the legs, which he could not well do if they were tied together. It is also a great advantage in holding sheep to pare and doctor their hoot's tor the foot-rot, and also to hold lambs and other animals when transporting or eastrating them.

That 1 claim as my invention is- Theabovedescribed frame or stock for bold ing the legs of sheep while shearing or slaughtering, and the legs of calves, pigs, or other animals while doctoring or slaughtering, subst ntially as described.

NEHEMIAH MERRITT.

Witnesses JOHN MoXsER, J. B. WELLS. 

